The second race of the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season at the EchoPark Speedway in Atlanta was a massive hit. Tyler Reddick reached Victory Lane once again after his success in the Daytona 500 and has gained quite an advantage over his peers early in the season and of the many who were impressed with the race that the 1.540-mile track facilitated was Dale Earnhardt Jr.
The popular icon discussed the venue’s appeal on the Dale Jr. Download podcast and heaped humongous praise on it. He believes that the tickets for the races in Atlanta are the easiest sell in the current climate and that the track puts together races that are even better to watch than the ones in Bristol or Kansas. That’s a tall compliment. But it wasn’t without its reasons.
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Dale Jr. said, *“The Cup [Series] guys. I know they’re driving their ass off. You know, set Daytona aside with the fuel saving. I know everywhere else they’re driving their a** off. But at Atlanta, I see it. Atlanta. As a fan. I’m watching. I see it. I see them busting their a** and working their a** hard. The big lifts. Fun to watch. Fun to watch.”*
Dale Jr. further expressed a strong interest in wanting to see a similar outcome in Daytona as well. As things stand, drivers and teams often opt to use strategies like fuel-saving to get through races at superspeedways. They do so at the cost of boring the fans out of their minds. Which is why the race at Atlanta is being seen as everything that a race at Daytona or Talladega ought to be.
The other reason why Dale Jr. loves Atlanta
Every time the Cup Series field goes to the EchoPark Speedway, the grip it offers reduces, and handling becomes more important. This is one of the aspects that makes racing there more difficult for drivers and more fun for fans. Dale Jr. continued to explain why this happens. The answer, as it happens, lies in geography.
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“Right in that little strip of the Mid-Atlantic region, I don’t know what it is about the asphalt or the temperature or the weather, but the Atlantic gets some crazy weather,” he said. “It gets snow, everything, too. So, that place will age quickly. The surface is going to age quickly. And handling is going to be more and more and more important every time they go back.”
The difference in the surface is significant, race-to-race, and it requires teams to be at the top of their game. Dale Jr.’s former crew chief, Steve Letarte, has been left equally impressed with what he has seen in the season so far. He stated during an appearance on NASCAR: Inside The Race that in Daytona and in Atlanta, fans got the best version of the sport. Hopefully, more such outings will follow.
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